Richard Riche
Richard Riche (July 1496 – ), lawyer and member of Parliament, a protege of Thomas Audley.
Week 10: 'Alas, What Shall I Do For Love?' (Part 1)
We meet Riche first at Austin Friars, introduced as Audley’s protege, “a golden-haired young man, pretty as a painted angel, who has an active, quick and secular mind.”
Week 14: Devil's Spit / A Painter’s Eye
Riche turns out to have a talent for drafting legislation which is second only to his own. His features, beneath his osft fair hair, are pinched with concentration; the boys call him Sir Purse.
He takes his job seriously. He reads Machiavelli but perhaps lacks imagination. And when the Nun of Kent says they should boil Princess Elizabeth, Riche throws his pen down.
He is a tender young father, with a daughter in the cradle.
New treason laws will be needed for these traitors, Riche says. “I have it in hand,” says Cromwell.
Week 17: The Map of Christendom (Part 2) / To Wolf Hall
When Thomas More is given his final chance, Riche comes to make notes. Afterwards, when he takes away More’s books, he has a lawyerly chat with More. He gets the prisoner to concede that Parliament has no jurisdiction over matters spiritual. It is treason. Riche vows to testify in court, where More can’t help but remind the court of Riche’s wayward student days.
“He will never let it drop, what I did as a boy. He uses me to make his sermon on. Well, let him make his next sermon on the block.”
Week 19: Crows (Part 1)
The boys call him Sir Purse; Purse is getting fatter, they say. The cares of office have fallen on him, the duties of the father of a growing family; once a golden boy, he looks to be covered by a faint patina of dust. Who would have thought he would be Solicitor General? But then he has a good lawyer’s brain, and when you want a good lawyer, he is always at hand.
Also:
Troubled men both, he thinks, Wriothesley and Riche, and alike in some ways, sidling around the peripheries of their own souls, tapping at the walls: oh, what is that hollow sound? But he has to produce to the king men of talent; and they are agile, they are tenacious, they are unsparing in their efforts for the Crown, and for themselves.
Week 21: Angels
Riche loves the law. At Kimbolton, he tells Henry he can’t have Katherine’s effects because they were never married. One cannot have it both ways.
Week 22: The Black Book (Part 1)
What happened to Anthony’s teeth?
To Richard Riche: He lost them in a dispute with a man who impugned the powers of Parliament.
Week 23: The Black Book (Part 2)
Riche is made chancellor of the new Court of Augmentations, overseeing the inflow of revenue from the dissolution of the monasteries.
Week 26: Master of Phantoms (Part 2/5)
Riche is waiting for them at the Tower when they bring Anne in. ‘Purse, what are you doing here?’
'I thought you might want me, sir.'
Week 27: Master of Phantoms (3/5)
Riche and Call-Me meet Cromwell at the Tower. Master Secretary has just spoken with Francis Weston. Call-Me offers to ‘get’ the confessions out of the prisoners and Cromwell’s look makes Wriothesley step back onto Riche’s foot. They think Cromwell ‘has gone out to piss’, but really he needs air. It has all got too real too fast.
Week 28: Master of Phantoms (Part 4/5)
At the trial, bets are placed on the outcome. ‘They do not understand the law,’ he explains to Riche. No one in the street will understand the outcome, and there will be blood on the ground ‘while the accused are still safe in the courtroom.’
Week 29: The Book of Phantoms (Part 5/5) / Spoils
Richard Riche wants to learn from Thomas Cromwell, but he cannot. Cromwell thinks it is like his three-card trick. ‘See the queen. Look well at her. Now … where is she?’
Week 32: Salvage (Part 2/3)
Riche is now the speaker of the House of Commons. He prepares his opening address to the king:
Sir Richard goes through paperwork like a raven through a rubbish heap. Stab, stab, stab – with his pen, not a beak – till everything before him is minced or crushed or shattered, like a snail-shell burst on a stone.
‘Riche considers his name his destiny,’ Gregory says. ‘He can turn ink into cash.’
Riche finds Cromwell puzzling. He doesn’t understand why Lord Privy Seal laughs out loud at the mention of the plague. When Cromwell thanks Bryan for intelligence on Stephen Gardiner, Riche cannot tell whether he is being ironical.
The king enjoys Riche’s speech, in which he compares Henry to Solomon, Samson and Absalom. When he throws Henry Courtenay off the council, he replaces him with Richard Riche.
Riche has a baptism of fire when he joins the king’s council. Henry wants his councillors to bring his daughter to trial and he, Richard Riche, watches Cromwell physically grapple with William Fitzwilliam and throw him from the room.
‘I wish I were never a councillor! I wish I were in China.’ Seymour mutters, 'I wish you were in Utopia.'
A reference to Thomas More, Riche’s old adversary.
Week 33: Salvage (Part 3/3)
Richard Riche is with the others at Hackney when Cromwell divulges the promise he made to Katherine to protect Lady Mary. Riche says: ‘Best if it goes no further. We will consign it to the shadows.’ Richard Cromwell objects: ‘Don’t try and make it a dirty little secret, Riche. It was an act of kindness. No more.’
Richard Riche’s goblet is chipped. Helen says ‘Richard Riche must have gnawed’ it and ‘I shall have to use him for flowers.’
Week 34: Wreckage (II) (Part 1/2)
Riche is busy drafting the new law to make marrying Meg Douglas a crime.
Week 35: Wreckage (II) (Part 2/2)
Richard Riche: ‘We would not for the world any baseless rumour traduce your reputation. Or set up a misunderstanding between you and our royal master.’
Richard Riche: ‘It is a potent weapon, sir, for your enemies to turn against you. For many believe that the husband of the Lady Mary, whoever he be, will be king one day. And any man who offers himself to wed her, stands in treasonable light.’
Riche offers to dispose of any husbands who create obstacles to Cromwell marrying. Legally, he implies. ‘Or we can just knife the fellow and toss him on a dungheap,’ adds Richard Cromwell, helpfully.
Week 37: The Five Wounds
Cromwell goes to Shaftesbury ‘as a private gentleman, as if attending on Sir Richard Riche, the Chancellor of Augmentations.’ After his interview with Dorothea, Riche assures him that ‘it never crossed my mind’ that you, Thomas Cromwell, betrayed the cardinal. He says he has ‘the figures’ of Shaftesbury and ‘so for now I have done here.’
Riche reports to Cromwell of the rising in Lincolnshire. The rebels are chanting against Crum, Cram and Rich. ‘I hear my name is reviled.’
Looking out of the window at Queen Jane, Riche says, ‘She looks — cushioned,’ but Cromwell says she is just a good eater. He would know if she was pregnant.
Week 38: Vile Blood (1/2)
When they consider the possibility of a ransom on Cromwell’s head, Richard Riche wonders how one might put a price on the value of Cromwell. He gets on the wrong side of Henry later when he murmurs approval at the late John Howard’s loyalty to any king named by Parliament. Howard was a traitor. ‘I perceive that you, Riche, do not know what a king is.’
Week 39: Vile Blood (Part 2/2)
Do not mock Ricardo Riche. At least, not to his face. He has stood up well to the hatred directed at him in recent weeks. He understands that there are sins that governors may, perhaps must, commit. The commandments for a prince are not the same as those that govern his subjects. He must lie for his country’s good.
Week 41: The Image of the King (Part 1/2)
Richard Riche, ‘at last’ has a son. ‘Any increase in Riche’s benevolence is of public interest… Sir Richard will be pleasantly placed to hand out the assets.’
Cromwell takes a day off and invites Riche around for supper. He wants Riche to help Bess Oughtred with some land. And he wants Launde for himself.
Riche says, ‘Launde will not come down yet. it is worth four hundred a year.’
Week 42: The Image of the King (Part 2/2) / Broken on the Body
At the last Charterhouse monks die, Riche totals up the value of all the houses to the nearest farthing. Cromwell says, ‘It seems to me, Sir Richard, that you have done service to the state. You can have the farthing, and spent it on your little pleasures.’
Week 44: Corpus Christi (Part 1/2)
‘I have always been surprised, Richard Riche says, that Wyatt should be an ambassador. He seems to me to come from a former age, when such gallantries as his did not have to pass through the king’s accounts.’ Always with the money Riche.
Lord Lisle on Riche: ‘There never was such a dip-pocket as he! He wants a shilling to say good morning to you!’
Henry on Riche. ‘He’s a lawyer … how else do they make their shillings?’
Week 45: Corpus Christi (Part 2/2) / Inheritance
Richard Riche: ‘We have no actual thing against them, to convict them of treason. No actions. Only words. But we have done it before. We have done it under the statute.’
Week 46: Ascension Day (Part 1/2)
Ricardo is preparing for Parliament. He gives Cromwell papers concerning the pensions for the nuns at Shaftesbury. Cromwell looks for the name Dorothea Clancey and finds her.
Riche: ‘I relish to see how your lordship transacts business among all sorts and conditions of people. I am the better instructed, and I profit by it.’
Pleasure and profit. What could be more fitting for Richard Riche?
Riche is cool when Call-Me storms in. He watches them all like they ‘are a tribe of indians.’ When Call-Me sets his cap feather alight, Riche puts it out with his ‘digits of iron.’